Foreclosure ends

Rancho Santa Fe spread owned by U-T's John Lynch went into foreclosure and quickly out. He is living there.

On December 4, a home at 6311 Clubhouse Drive, Rancho Santa Fe, went into foreclosure. Owner John Lynch, chief executive of the U-T, his wife Catherine and the family trust were warned in a Notice of Trustee's Sale, "You are in default under a deed of trust dated September 8, 2006. Unless you take action to protect your property, it may be sold at a public sale." In September and again in November the Reader had reported that the mortgage was in default. On Nov. 6, Lynch promised he would pay a penalty to clear up the default on property taxes. Then came this month's foreclosure notice. Sid McClue of Prudential, who had been trying to sell the property for $3.495 million, says he is no longer trying to sell it. "Mr. Lynch decided not to sell. He owns the house andl ives in the house." McClue is quite sure the home is no longer in foreclosure and Lynch confirms that.

Lynch says he is trying to purchase the mortgage for a discount. It is "one of my investments," he says. In November, he had said he had not been living in the house for a year; he was renting it out and living downtown. "The accounting was not handled well by both my advisers and the [County] Treasurer," he said then. Now he also blames "some bad practices by a lender." He will either buy the mortgage cheap or sue, he says. He earlier said this was his only mortgage. Says Lynch, "As you might imagine, my net worth is quite substantial."

Comments

If we all did not know better, we might suspect that Lynch is using his prominence and the power of the UT to stop his foreclosure. We might all wonder, if we did not know the whole story, if he were living beyond his means. Then Lynch identifies this property, his ostensible home, when he describes it as "one of [his] investments." Is it his home, or is it just an investment? Oh, what a tangle.

Visduh: Lynch has given several stories since we began reporting this in September and November, when there were defaults. Finally we got the foreclosure information this month. Lynch was renting the Rancho Santa Fe house; he was trying to sell it while living downtown. This is a very interesting tale, and Lynch's various explanations and attempts to shift the blame to others may be the most interesting. Best, Don Bauder